The Greco-Warriors
by Makke Karyumo
Summary: A group of teenagers must become real-life Power Rangers in order to save the world from a vengeful God. However, in real life, death and pain are all too real.


Chapter 1

Iris

"Yeah, yeah. Leave me alone while I'm driving, you drunkards," I laugh at my friends. I'm driving the Ford Explorer that currently belongs to the drunken guy sitting in passenger seat's mom. It's the only vehicle between any of us had that would fit five of us. I'm also driving because I'm the only one who didn't drink at our all night New Years Laser Tag party. Not because I can't. Technically, we're all underage. But we're responsible, and I'm weird enough without it in my system. I just drink when no one needs to drive. So I always end up the designated driver, which I usually have no problem with.

Except it's eight in the morning and the last time I slept was waking up at 11 A.M yesterday. And I'm still the only one good to drive, so I do my duty. Fortunately for my sanity, my brain likes being entertaining when it is sleep deprived.

"Dude… I feel like we should be a super hero group or something. How awesome would that be? I mean, we practically spend every minute together anyway." The words are out of my mouth before the thought even finishes in my head. All my friends are silent… at first. I'm Nick Grimm. I've become known as the guy who does that.

"Are you sure we're the drunk ones?" asks the guy in the passenger seat. That's Zach Mercer. He's going to college for engineering right now but he came home for winter holidays and our group has been practically inseparable. He's tall, lanky, and bitchy. He particularly won't let us forget that he's a black belt, but he's never actually been in a real fight. When we play around, I incapacitate him pretty quickly with a bear hug. After all, I'm a five-foot-nine bear. But we love him anyway. Past that, he has short dark hair and not much else of note.

"I dunno. He might have got contact drunk when he touched us," a voice says from the right of the second row. It was Andrew Curtis who spoke. He's shorter than me, but he has a beefy build. He enlisted in the Marines and is going to boot camp in a month, a fact he won't let us forget. We're gonna miss him, but it's what he wants to do. He has a blonde military cut.

"Or, or, or… Nick… Did you sneak some? Hmmmm?!" the guy right behind says. That's Tyler Stiller. He's taller than me with dark hair. He's Filipino, but he likes to say he's been black since puberty.

We're not entirely sure why, but we all have our own theories.

"No. Shut the hell up. I can't focus on driving like this," I laugh. Then I notice that someone has neglected to inject their two-cents into the conversation. "Arren! You don't have anything to say?"

I don't get a response.

"Nah, bro, he's out," Tyler informs me. It turns out that Arren Levin, our resident light-skinned black friend, snuck into the hatch and fell asleep without me noticing. Which is impressive because he's taller than me, as well.

"Just hit him a few times, he'll wake up."

"I'll do it!" Andrew yells enthusiastically. It only takes five slaps to the face before Arren wakes up.

"GOD! WHAT?!" He's cranky.

"You don't want to put your two-cents in the conversation?" I ask him innocently.

"What conversation?"

"I was just talking about how we are pretty much a super hero group, or we should be." Arren just looks at me for a moment before replying.

"I don't want any part of this. I'm going back to sleep."

"Whatever, stiff." He can't stand being tired.

After this little exchange, Tyler falls asleep against his window and Andrew lies down with his feet in Tyler's lap, out like a light. With Arren asleep in the hatch, that leaves just me and Zach awake.

"Well, if we were, what would we even do?" Zach asks me.

"I dunno, really… There are those missing people, to start with. There've been eight missing in the last two months."

"Well, as it is, it's not like we can do anything about it," Zach replies. Just then, he starts pushing his hand against my shoulder.

"Dude, stop. I'm driving." It's hard enough to drive running on no sleep, near impossible when someone is pestering you.

"I cannot."

"What do you mean you 'cannot'?"

"I do not know." Through his inebriation, Zach doesn't register that there might be a problem. And I take the very next exit.

I don't know what makes me do it. I have no idea what is on this exit. I've never been in this area before. For all I know, we could be heading for Middle of Nowhere, Arizona, and we're not even close to Arizona. At this point, I'm driving completely blind. As soon as I take the exit, though, Zach's arm stops.

Thankfully, we're not going to the middle of nowhere, but close. After about ten minutes, we reach a solitary building. I decide it's a good idea to stop there and regroup. Fortunately, the guys are relatively easy to wake up now that we are stopped.

As it turns out, the building is a Greek Mythology Museum. I didn't even know those existed. That said, I decide that stopping there for a while is a good idea, so we might as well go in. When I inform the guys of my decision, they aren't very happy.

"Look," I begin. "I can't exactly take you home like this and it will take you longer than the time it takes to get there to sober up. And this is the only building I can see for a while so we might as well check it out." When no one can come up with a counter-argument, they reluctantly agree and I lead them in. We buy our passes and walk around for about an hour. That is, until Arren finds a blocked off hallway.

"Dude," he says.

"No, Arren. It's off-limits," I reply.

"And?" He retorts. "That's never stopped us before." With that, he climbs under the rope blocking off the hallway and the others follow.

"None of you were drunk before," I sigh to myself, but follow them anyway. They need someone to supervise them right now.

"Huh. This place might be interesting after all," Andrew says. We've reached a heptagonal room with six portraits, one on each wall, and the entranceway on the final wall. In the center of the room is a stone pedestal with five spherical indents that could fit a ball about the size of a light bulb surrounding one bowling ball-sized spherical mound in the center of the pedestal.

We go around looking at the portraits for a little while first. I notice that each one is reflective, like it's made of colored mirror glass. I can see myself in each of them. As I walk around, looking at the paintings, I look under them and see little plaques. In one painting, I see a man that has pure gold skin with a white toga and shoulder-blade length white hair. He has electric bolts around him and the reflectiveness makes the light shimmer on it, making it look like the bolts are crackling. Looking at the plaque underneath it, I see it says "Zeus." The god of the sky and lightning. King of the gods and overworld. Curious, I move further along the walls of the room.

In the next painting, I see a muscular man with tan skin and black hair, wearing a blue toga. He is standing among waves that are frothing at the top. Again, the reflectiveness almost makes them look like they are moving. The plaque underneath this painting reads "Poseidon." God of the sea. The next painting shows a woman with extremely long, wavy hair. I can't seem to determine its exact color, but she is beautiful and she is wearing a toga of every color in the rainbow. She is not surrounded by anything, it seems. The plaque reads "Iris." The goddess of rainbows and communication. Growing ever more curious, I continue to the next painting, which shows a pale man with scars all over his body, in a green toga. He is surrounded by what looks like green fire. Once again, the mirror quality to the painting makes it look as if they are real. I remember something from a mythology book I read once. In ancient times, true Greek fire was thought to be green. The plaque underneath it reads "Apollo." He's the god of the sun, archery, and music. Looking ahead, I see that there are two more paintings I haven't looked at yet.

The first one shows a slender man with brown hair, wearing sandals and a red toga. He has large wings coming out of his feet that are so large they surround him. The mirrorness makes it look as if the feathers are rippling. The plaque underneath it reads "Hermes." He's the god of messages and invention. He used the wind and the wings on his sandals to fly quickly.

And then I reach the final painting. A pale man with skin so pale it's practically translucent in a black toga stands alone, surrounded only by darkness... Or so it seems, at first. Looking closer, I can see skeletons moving around in the darkness. I know it's just the painting being weird, but it still messes with my head. The plaque underneath reads "Hades." The god of death and the underworld. And then I notice my reflection. I noticed my reflection in all the other paintings, so I don't take much notice at first. But then I feel like something is off about my reflection, but I can't tell what it is. I look around to call the guys over and see their reflections in it, but I notice that they have all stopped in front of different paintings and are examining them just like I was examining Hades painting.

I decide it was just my sleep deprived mind playing tricks on me and dismiss it. Then I look over at the pedestal.

"…I wanna touch it," I mumble. Zach looks over at me to reply.

"Nick, you know you shouldn't."

"Oh, bugger off, prick." I walk to the pedestal and put my hand on the mound in the center. I think for a minute and think that a picture of us with all of our hands on it would look pretty cool. So I call the guys over, and it only takes minimal convincing to do what I want. They all put their left hands on the mound, waiting for me. I grab my camera and get it ready. I carry it with me everywhere. I'm going to hold it above us with my right hand while my left hand is on the pedestal. I hold my camera over us and place my hand on the pedestal…

And then it bites us.

At least, that's what it feels like. We all retract our hands quickly with varying degrees of expletives. I drop my camera as I grab my left hand, inspecting it for the bite mark, but there is just a single drop of blood. Then the pain comes. Hard.

It feels like my hand is catching on fire from the inside out. I can feel the searing heat coming from my wrist. At this moment, I would give everything just to make it stop. Through my half-closed eyes, I can see the guys experiencing the same thing.

And then it just… stops. The fire in my hand just disappears. I don't even have that lingering sensation that usually follows pain. I look down at my wrist to see what the deal is. I don't know what I'm expecting, but what I see is definitely not it.

Right in the middle of my wrist (The bottom half, the direction of my palm) is an empty black circle, about as wide as a light bulb. Coming out of the top of the circle are two lines; one from the left "corner," and the other from the right "corner." The one on the left moves up and out further to left a bit before curving back around the top of the circle. The one on the right mirrors it, and they intersect at one point in the very center of the wrist then curve down around the circle, meeting at a curved point about two inches underneath the circle.

But that's not all. Coming from each side, only a bit lower than the first two lines, are two more lines that move out from the circle and down as they wrap around my wrist. Finally, from the bottom "corners" of the circle, two **more** lines come from the circle, seemingly mirroring the previous ones; moving out and up as they wrap around, intersecting the previous lines at the sides of my wrist.

After absorbing everything on the inside of my wrist, I finally turn my arm over and look at the outside of my arm. The lines that started at the bottom of the circle move up and curve back around, meeting at a point right where my hand meets my arm. The other lines that started at the top and moved down kept going down, but sharply curved back up, ending in spirals about one inch in diameter, right under the top curves. There is a small gap between the two spirals. A small line spans the gap, connecting the spirals.

The final touch to my new addition is a pair of thick lines that start at the bottom of the spirals and move down my arm, tapering as they move down, meeting at a single point about two inches under the spirals.

I finally look away from my wrist to see that the others got a new tattoo, as well, except theirs are in different colors: Zach's is red, Tyler's is blue, Andrew's is pure white, and Arren's is green. Besides the color, they're all exactly the same. Right about now, we all look at each other for a few seconds before looking at our assaulter: The pedestal.

But it's changed. It isn't dark stone anymore. The whole thing has turned into a crystal with a light emanating from it, casting rainbows on everything the light falls on. From the mound down, the entire pedestal has become a prism. As if that wasn't eye-catching enough, the five indents in the pedestal aren't empty anymore. Resting in each dimple is an orb about the size of the circle on my wrist. Each one glows a different color: One is black, one is red. Another two are blue and white. The last one is green. Something tells me that none of this is a coincidence, and I'm not sure how I feel about that.

Before I can decide, however, my thoughts are cut off by the rainbows cast by the pedestal. More specifically, the fact that they are shifting now. All at once, it looks as though the rainbows are moving through the air towards the pedestal in the middle of the room.

_That's not possible,_ I think to myself. _The light isn't hitting anything. We shouldn't be able to see it in the air. _

Man. I really need to stop assuming things.

Much to our disbelief, the rainbows really are moving through the air to the pedestal. As they do, the light stops coming from the entire pedestal, eventually emanating only from the mound, just more intense. The light stops moving when it makes a cone in the air above the pedestal. The shifting colors are so dense that it almost looks solid. At this point, I'm ready for anything.

Or so I think.

Apparently, I'm not ready for a woman to appear in the cone. As soon as she appears, my eyes go wide and my jaw goes slack. It takes me a few seconds before I realize that she looks familiar. I rush over to one of the paintings and peer at it for a moment. In a few seconds, I'm sure. There's no doubt in my mind. Apparently, though, I'm the only one who made it to this painting, because Zach spoke next.

"Who the hell is that?" he asks no one in particular. The frightened tone in his voice tells me he's sobered up quite a bit. I can only assume the same is true for the others because they are speechless.

"She's Iris," I reply. "Goddess of communication and, well, rainbows."

"That, I am, mortal," says Iris. Her voice is soft but it resonates. "I know you are all wondering what is happening. Please allow me to explain before asking any questions. We need your help."

"Who's 'we'?" asks Arren. He's not great at following instructions.

"Put simply, us Greek Gods."

"But… Greek Gods aren't real…" Arren's voice trailed off.

"It is true that we do not exist in the way you mortals typically believe," Iris responded patiently.

"But you just sai-" Arren stops mid-sentence. From behind him, I can see him grabbing at his face. It seems that Iris has disabled his voice for the time being. The thought makes me chuckle internally.

"My patience wears thin, mortal. I asked you to hold your questions until after I had explained. I will not tolerate more interruptions. Do you understand?" Instead of responding with a nod or shake of his head, Arren turns to run out of the room. Instead of getting out, however, he bounces back at the edge of the room. It looks a lot like someone bouncing off of a glass door. I walk slowly to the entranceway and put my hand against it. I can feel an electric charge against my fingertips but nothing else. That said, I can't push my hand out of the room.

"Well then," I begin. "We're stuck in here until she decides to let us go, guys."

"Okay, Iris. Say what you need to say. There won't be any more interruptions," Zach speaks for the rest of us.

"You are wise… for mortals. As I was saying, no. We do not exist in the form you typically believe us deities to exist. Deities do not exist before mortals begin to believe in them. The reality is quite to the contrary, actually. The energies of those who believe in a deity are what create the deity themselves. The belief and perception of the deity by the mortals turn them into who they are. Without believers, deities begin to grow weaker and weaker. At the dawn of the new age, we Greek Gods lost all of our believers." Iris pauses for a moment before realizing that none of us are going to say anything. At this point, I walk to a wall and slide down it, sitting and watching Iris. Then she continues. The others don't move.

"To prevent ourselves from ceasing to exist, we all decided to condense our auras into crystals that would survive for as long as we needed. However, only six of us succeeded. The rest of the Gods failed and ceased to exist." I can't stop myself from giving my input any longer.

"I'm going to guess that the six portraits here are the six of you that succeeded. Am I correct?" The calmness in my voice unsettles me. Sometimes I just adapt too quickly.

"You are," Iris responds. "And the crystals are those you see below me. The prism pedestal itself is mine. The five orbs are the others."

"And what does any of this have to do with us?" Zach queries, assuming it safe to interject now. Iris hesitates for a moment before answering.

"There is trouble in the world now. You may recall that the energies of believers create deities. That does not apply only to us. Your monotheistic religions have been creating your own deity for hundreds of years."

"But those religions all believe in different gods," I interrupt.

"Perhaps in your eyes. But their energies have merged, creating one being. And no matter how much the followers claim the opposite, there is more negative energy than positive energy in these pools of believers."

"HA! Called it! You owe me $20, Tyler. Sorry, Iris. Continue." She glares at me briefly before going on.

"This deity, going by the title of 'Angel' is not benevolent. It is evil and malicious. As it turns out, it has also taken a liking to interfering with your world. However, the only way it can do so is by possessing citizens of your world. However, the bodies of these people cannot handle the power Angel, and deteriorate quickly." The truth dawns on me as she says it.

"The missing people."

"Indeed. This deity has begun taking over people in your world, killing them from the inside out. But it is even worse than that. The souls of the possessed still reside within their bodies as Angel possesses them. The energy is so intense that their souls are in total agony for as long as Angel resides there."

"I repeat: What does this have to do with us?" Zach interjects, annoyed.

"We need your help. We cannot stop Angel alone. We need a medium to use our powers, a fact we discovered the hard way. And you are the only group close enough, spiritually, to each other for us to work together properly. We need you to be our mediums. We need you to become our #$*%#& *$%*#$&."

"I'm sorry, you need us to become your what?" Tyler finally speaks.

"Your language does not have a proper term for it, I'm afraid. Simply put, we need you to don our powers and fight the evil that is Angel."

"So you need us to be Power Rangers," I exclaim sarcastically.

"In a sense, that is correct. However, this is not a child's game, as the Power Rangers are. This is all too real. The threat of death and pain is not to be taken lightly. I only ask this of you because we have no other choice. Will you help us?"

None of us say anything for a long time, alternating between looking around the room and looking at each other. Finally, I stand up and start walking towards the pedestal.

"Well, I don't have anything left to lose, so I might as well." The others stare at me incredulously.

When I reach the pedestal, I hold out my left hand and grab the black orb. As I do, I see something fly out of the mound on the pedestal, leaving a black streak behind it.

"And that's the last thing I remember before waking up this morning," I speak into the microphone on my cell phone. I'm in the junkyard, sitting on an old, dilapidated couch. Zach is silent on the other end for a while before speaking. "Yeah. Just meet me here with the others. We'll figure this out."


End file.
